What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[garbon]

From the snippets that have been posted, I'm not sure what is so impressive about James Carville's statements. They seem pretty much in line with the received wisdom that to win Dems need 100% message discipline while Republicans can act like crazy people and still get elected.

[garbon]

It would be cool if people could opt out of police protection.

If we're going to go to benefits to the individual, I'm still waiting on the day that a police officer does something to help me personally. I think that might make a nice change from berating me, lying to me, pressuring me into making bad decisions and racially profiling me.

[The Larch]

Talking about playing dirty...

New York Post reporter quits citing pressure to write incorrect story about Kamala Harris

Laura Italiano claimed she was forced to write a report about migrant children being given a copy of the VP's book as part of a welcome kit


A reporter at Rupert Murdoch's New York tabloid has resigned after she claimed she was forced to write an incorrect story about migrants and Kamala Harris.

The New York Post published a story on 23 April headlined "Kam on in", which claimed that migrant children were being given a copy of the vice-president's 2019 book, Superheroes Are Everywhere, as part of a welcome kit in Los Angeles.

Laura Italiano was credited with writing the story but on Tuesday she announced on Twitter that being told to write the "incorrect story" was her "breaking point" over working at the tabloid.

"Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post," she said. "The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point.

"It's been a privilege to cover the City of New York for its liveliest, wittiest tabloid—a paper filled with reporters and editors I admire deeply and hold as friends. I'm sad to leave."

The story was followed up by several rightwing outlets such as Fox News. One of the cable channel's reporter's asked a question about the alleged use of Harris's book at a White House press briefing.

But the story was based on a single photograph of the book taken at a temporary immigration facility at the Long Beach convention center in Southern California, and was revealed as being incorrect.

The Daily Beast reported that it had been taken off the Post's website but was later reinstated with a footnote.

"The original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris' book in a welcome kit but has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was given to a child," the editor's note said.

An investigation by the Washington Post revealed that the book had turned up at the Long Beach facility as part of a book and toy drive for migrant children.

"The city of Long Beach, in partnership with the Long Beach convention and visitors bureau, has a city-wide book and toy drive that is ongoing to support the migrant children who are temporarily staying in Long Beach at the US Department of Health and Human Services shelter," city spokesman Kevin Lee told the Washington Post.

"The book you reference is one of hundreds of books that have already been donated. The book was not purchased by HHS or the City."

[Zoupa]

ad nauseam infinitum

You know what's funny? You were JUST SAYING that the Dems have to fight dirty and get better at messaging. Which is EXACTLY what Carville is saying. Hell, almost word for word:

And look, part of the problem is that lots of Democrats will say that we have to listen to everybody and we have to include every perspective, or that we don't have to run a ruthless messaging campaign. Well, you kinda do. It really matters.

I always tell people that we've got to stop speaking Hebrew and start speaking Yiddish. We have to speak the way regular people speak, the way voters speak. It ain't complicated. That's how you connect and persuade.

It's funny how people want what they want, and then when someone tries to give it to them, its all "OH WAIT! I didn't mean ME! *I* don't need to change! It's all those other dumbasses!"

Take a breath my man. I was reacting to DGuller's words, not Carville.

[crazy canuck]

It would be cool if people could opt out of police protection.

If we're going to go to benefits to the individual, I'm still waiting on the day that a police officer does something to help me personally. I think that might make a nice change from berating me, lying to me, pressuring me into making bad decisions and racially profiling me.

It would be cool if people could opt out of racist policing.

[Barrister]

It would be cool if people could opt out of police protection.

Hard pass.

Would open up too many crooks to coerce their victims to opt out.

[Jacob]

I'm not for the abolition of the police, but IMO existing policing needs to be reformed by fire and brand. There's a whole lot of rot that needs to be ripped out, people need to lose their careers, and people need to be prosecuted. This is not something that needs a bit more funding for sensitivity seminars or a three-days-a-year mandatory deescalation workshops.

You get caught displaying callous disregard for the people in your responsibilty (mocking people's suffering), you get disciplined with loss of pay and eventually - say three strikes - you're out.

You fire a single bullet? Plenty of tedious paperwork to document that you followed proper process.

You fail to follow best practices to ensure there's reviewable material for your conduct (oh, you forgot to turn on your body cam)? Suspensions without pay at the very least.

You conduct yourself in a way that comes across as bigoted, racist, or non-inclusive by modern corporate America standards? You're fired and lose your pension.

You are shown to have lied to protect your "brethren in blue"? You've tampered with evidence? You carry shit to plant on people to frame them? You say something happened when it didn't? Fired and you lose your pension, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You create an environment through words and actions that encourages the behaviour above? Disciplinary action, set-back to career progress.

Basically individual officers need to have clear, significant, and consistent consequences for even remotely dubious behaviour.

I'm pretty confident that there are a number of US and Canadian police departments that operate along those lines - or at least somewhat close to it - but the ones that don't need to be beaten into shape. The police need to be professional, courteous, responsible, honest, and accountable.

[The Brain]

America: PASS

[Barrister]

I'm not for the abolition of the police, but IMO existing policing needs to be reformed by fire and brand. There's a whole lot of rot that needs to be ripped out, people need to lose their careers, and people need to be prosecuted. This is not something that needs a bit more funding for sensitivity seminars or a three-days-a-year mandatory deescalation workshops.

You get caught displaying callous disregard for the people in your responsibilty (mocking people's suffering), you get disciplined with loss of pay and eventually - say three strikes - you're out.

You fire a single bullet? Plenty of tedious paperwork to document that you followed proper process.

You fail to follow best practices to ensure there's reviewable material for your conduct (oh, you forgot to turn on your body cam)? Suspensions without pay at the very least.

You conduct yourself in a way that comes across as bigoted, racist, or non-inclusive by modern corporate America standards? You're fired and lose your pension.

You are shown to have lied to protect your "brethren in blue"? You've tampered with evidence? You carry shit to plant on people to frame them? You say something happened when it didn't? Fired and you lose your pension, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You create an environment through words and actions that encourages the behaviour above? Disciplinary action, set-back to career progress.

Basically individual officers need to have clear, significant, and consistent consequences for even remotely dubious behaviour.

I'm pretty confident that there are a number of US and Canadian police departments that operate along those lines - or at least somewhat close to it - but the ones that don't need to be beaten into shape. The police need to be professional, courteous, responsible, honest, and accountable.

Look, I think I have a pretty good idea that police forces are not perfect.  I review their actions almost daily.  I've written several opinions on the likelihood of charges.

But let me give you the following comments:

-'callous disregard'  Look police deal with severely disadvantaged people every single day.  Compassion fatigue is a very real problem in their line of work (and to a much lesser degree my own).  Part of being a professional means acting like a professional, but really "three strikes and your out" for not having a professional demeanour?  What other profession has anything like that.

-'tons of paperwork for firing a bullet'.  You have no much paperwork has to be filed for just pulling a gun out of your holster - it's a lot.  I can't even imagine what would happen for an officer shooting.  I think that automatically triggers an ASIRT investigation (an independent police oversight body).

-'fail to follow best practices' - your answer is suspension without pay.  Name me one profession where if you don't follow best practices you automatically get suspended without pay.  We're not talking about a major mistake, just not following best practices.  'I'm sorry you forgot to file your TPS reports last week - I guess that's 3 days without pay for you.  Try to do better next time'.  There's a wide range of effective penalties far short of that.

-'conduct yourself as non-inclusive = you're fired'  So I take it you're a big fan of "cancel culture then"?  Problem here is I'm only guessing at what you're meaning because your language is very vague.  I could immediately leap to "make a slightly off-colour joke in public while off duty and you're fired".  Is that what you intended?  We had a situation in Edmonton where two cops were caught by a door cam.  They were on duty but no one else was around and they didn't know they were being recorded.  They were talking about how whites would no longer be in the majority soon (which is true).  One oddly said something about yeah, he would urge his son to get an asian wife to fit in.  They then go out of camera range.  Should those officers be fired?

-'lie under oath / hide evidence' - I mean we do this already.  I have never run into a situation where I think officers have faked evidence.  In fact I once tried to prosecute a case where I thought the officer was being so truthful I was using his own notes against him.  Bigger problem is one of "blue silence" where the officers just don't say anything, which is a harder problem to solve.

-'create an environment'... even vaguer.

I agree there should be clear consequences for misdeeds.  We need to have a system to encourage greater accountability.  I do think body and dash cams can be a big part of that.

But when your immediate reaction is to attack an officers livelihood through a system of suspensions without pay and summary dismissal (and I didn't even get into 'and lose your pension' with is just vindictive) you're going to immediately create overwhelming police hostility.  Any successful police reform initiative has to have a certain level of buy-in both from the wider community, but from police themselves.

[DGuller]

You conduct yourself in a way that comes across as bigoted, racist, or non-inclusive by modern corporate America standards? You're fired and lose your pension.

A lot of the other things you mentioned I'm fully onboard, but this?  WTF?  We're going to fire people from civil service jobs, and confiscate their pensions, based on a quickly-evolving standard set by amoral entities that make decisions to make the problems for their shareholders go away rather than to treat their employee under fire fairly?  That's thought NKVD level shit right there.  I don't think modern corporate American standards should even be applied to modern American corporations, let alone a government job.

[Oexmelin]

Any successful police reform initiative has to have a certain level of buy-in both from the wider community, but from police themselves.

How likely is that going to be?

I agree with lots of your point. Three of my uncles have been police officers. Adding more paperwork to fill just produces more incentives to routinize the treatment of paperwork, by all who are involved. People fill out paperwork with the ritualized words necessary to pass review. What you describe as compassion fatigue is very real. It's even more real if "compassion" isn't really why you entered the police force, or if it's folded into all sorts of performances of machismo, power fantasies, and a very real spite for the kinds of people you are entrusted to "police". Once an influential group of peers heaps scorn and spite on groups of the population you are supposed to serve - whether black or indigenous people, poor inner city people, leftwing students who don't share in your values, drug addicts, etc. it becomes very hard to fight, and I wouldn't file that under "compassion fatigue".

But the argument that "no other profession" has this or that shouldn't be a guiding principle, precisely because no other profession has the possibility of legitimately kill another citizen. Police offices have extraordinary power, and thus should be subjected to extraordinary scrutiny, and extraordinary accountability. Their rights to a livelihood has to be balanced about the fact that they are armed, and entitled to wield the coercive strength of the arguments. Even a mistaken arrest can fuck you up way more than what an incompetent plumber or an incompetent civil servant can do. And many of the arguments you raise suggest precisely taking some of that power *away* from the police, in order to make use of people trained to deal with mental illness, drug addiction, cultural mediation.

That would require taking the considerable resources we devote to police and rechannel them to these forms and structures. I would call that "defunding the police", but apparently it creates dangeous allergic reactions. Let's call that "rechanneling resources away from police". And no institution that I know of will ever argue for resources being taken away from them, nor arguing for more oversight, or more accountability. On the contrary, police unions have fought tooth and nail against any suggestion that there needs to be any form of police reform... except perhaps these meaningless, three-day cultural sensitivity seminars, who are often framed in such ways as to already invite scorn about them.

[alfred russel]

Gambling is a very bad investment dude...unless you already know the results but you don't strike me as the 21st century Arnold Rothstein.

So was getting excited about posting an update here...after losing massively with the failure of my timing bets of Biden's cabinet confirmations with the delay due to the impeachment trial, I had come back. Coming into today I was up a total of $8,700, with winnings attributed to the following:

2020 election stuff (some placed after the election/including that Trump's challenges would lose): $7,058
Cabinet and other nominee stuff: $759
vote fraud shit (like what senators would vote to accept election results, and vote to convict trump): $710
foreign and local shit: $173

So I was feeling pretty good, especially since I've come all the way back in the cabinet stuff despite being a few k in the hole at the start of March, and was going to wait on posting an update until I was up $10k....

But the cloture vote on Samantha Power as US AID administrator went horribly wrong for me and it looks like I'll lose ~$700 in the vote at 330 today. However, I shall press on!

[Barrister]

Oex,

I think it's *possible*.  Police are a part of the same world we live in.  They know the moment we are in.  They feel frustrated that they are not being supported by the public and politicians.  A lot of them know of fellow colleagues who do not necessarily bring honour to their service.  If framed as a way to get that support back I think you could get sufficient levels of buy-in.

"Defund the police" is done as a useful slogan.  It was clunky language to begin with, but then when you had it bubble up from the George Floyd protests you had certain activists try to argue as you do, while others said 'no we really mean abolish the police'. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html

And I think "no other profession" is valid.  Perfection is impossible.  People make mistakes because that's how we are.  If your only answer to preventing or fixing mistakes is increasing levels of punishment you're not going to get anywhere.  Now deliberate acts are different, and I'm all for prosecuting police crimes fully.

[alfred russel]

I'm not for the abolition of the police, but IMO existing policing needs to be reformed by fire and brand. There's a whole lot of rot that needs to be ripped out, people need to lose their careers, and people need to be prosecuted. This is not something that needs a bit more funding for sensitivity seminars or a three-days-a-year mandatory deescalation workshops.

You get caught displaying callous disregard for the people in your responsibilty (mocking people's suffering), you get disciplined with loss of pay and eventually - say three strikes - you're out.

You fire a single bullet? Plenty of tedious paperwork to document that you followed proper process.

You fail to follow best practices to ensure there's reviewable material for your conduct (oh, you forgot to turn on your body cam)? Suspensions without pay at the very least.

You conduct yourself in a way that comes across as bigoted, racist, or non-inclusive by modern corporate America standards? You're fired and lose your pension.

You are shown to have lied to protect your "brethren in blue"? You've tampered with evidence? You carry shit to plant on people to frame them? You say something happened when it didn't? Fired and you lose your pension, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You create an environment through words and actions that encourages the behaviour above? Disciplinary action, set-back to career progress.

Basically individual officers need to have clear, significant, and consistent consequences for even remotely dubious behaviour.

I'm pretty confident that there are a number of US and Canadian police departments that operate along those lines - or at least somewhat close to it - but the ones that don't need to be beaten into shape. The police need to be professional, courteous, responsible, honest, and accountable.

It seems the places that have issues are the places that have been run by people with very progressive politics and would probably agree with you in spirit (if not on every point). If you take Atlanta, which I think is probably representative of a lot of big cities, the reality is that the police department has been understaffed for many years (it can't get recruits for all of its positions) and morale is notoriously low. The cost of living in Atlanta is super high compared to the rest of the state and the top priority for elected officials in the rest of the state is to "back the blue".

I'm not giving a solution--I don't have one--just that the problems are pretty intractable.

[Oexmelin]

I think it's *possible*.

Maybe. Not extremely optimistic, but I also acknowledge that some places may have more open culture about this sort of reform.

"Defund the police" is done as a useful slogan.

Of course it is. This goes back to the endless discussion we are having: for some, the language of activists is always unhelpful, and they would rather spend considerable amount of time and energy distancing themselves from it, for fear of being, *gasp* too far left. The people who endlessly complain the left eats its own always seem to want to secure a seat at the table.

I don't give a shit if a slogan becomes discredited - but I do care if it succeeds in pushing these ideas to the forefront, and would rather that more time was spent by people who sympathize with the goal in pushing the sprit of the slogan than simply assert themselves as good centrist afraid of those horrible woke people. People like Caville can lecture about message discipline, but the message discipline they always favor is one that is lab-grown through study groups and weaponized in backroom deals. The ideas they say are popular in the country never appeared magically, but through grassroot work and, yes, the horrible, terrible language of activists. 

Perfection is impossible. [quotes] Sure. But the stakes of imperfection are different. "Shit, I cut this length of pipe too short for the sink. This is the third time!" vs "Shit, this intervention I lead escalated to violence for the third time"...